The most convincing scientific progress in psychiatry in the past
decade has had little to do with genomics. It is the rigorous, scientific
verification that certain forms of psychotherapy are effective. This is
perhaps not surprising. One of the major insights in the modern biology
of learning and memory is that education,
experience, and social interactions affect the brain. When you learn
something and then remember it for a long time, it's because genes
are being turned on and off in certain brain cells, leading to the growth
of new synaptic contacts between the nerve cells of the
brain. Insofar as psychotherapy works
and produces stable, learned changes in behavior, it can cause stable
anatomical changes in the brain. We are now beginning to
measure such changes with brain imaging. If a person with
obsessive-compulsive neurosis or depression undergoes psychotherapy -and
if the treatment is successful in changing behavior- the treatment will
cause a reversal in the biological markers of these disorders.